Archive for August 27, 2012

This Photo of the Week (POTW) is from the Nagoya Dance Festival (Domatsuri), which attracts over 250 teams teams mainly from the Nagoya area, as well as places far afield as Hokkaido and Kyushu, and, apparently, occasionally some international teams. See the domatsuri tag for more info, my Asia Photo Connection / Henry Westheim agent, and my PhotoShelter portfolios for more photos, and here for the most recent domatsuri video.

This Photo of the Week is from the recent World Cosplay Summit (WCS). Cosplay is where comic book fans make their own costumes and dress up as their favourite characters. The World Cosplay Summit, being in Japan, celebrates only Japanese comic and computer game characters, so no Star Trek or Harry Potter costumes are welcome. This years winners were the Japanese team, second the Singaporean team, and third was the Indonesian team. Below is the Spanish team that competed in the WCS2012, playing the roles of Tiger & Bunny. This image and others like it are available for print, product, personal download, and media licensing from my PhotoShelter portfolio. Hurry, as soon as the Discount Coupon runs out, I need to clear out a whole lot of cosplay images to make space for new ones.

My storage space is very limited, and so I need to clear the World Cosplay Summit 2012 (WCS) photos as soon as possible, so I’m offering this hurry and buy now option. For any photo on my PhotoShelter portfolio you can use the Cosplay Coupon to get a 10% discount. The offer is not limited to who or how many time. Offer requires a minimum USD$20 purchase, and expires 21st August (very soon). When you go to pay, enter WCS2012 for the coupon code to get your 10% discount. Hurry, before you forget.

This Photo Of the Week (POTW) is from the World Cosplay Summit (WCS) red carpet event before the championship held on Saturday, 4th August 2012. Aichi TV is both the main sponsor and broadcaster of the event. I was lucky enough to get a press pass so that I could get good access to the competitors. This year there are competitors are from 20 countries including Italy, Finland, Indonesia, South Korea, and the UK. The event was won by the Japanese team, although the Singaporean and Thai teams were tied at equal first on audience vote. The Singaporean team was officially anointed second, and the Indonesian team third.

The photo below is of Valerie from Singapore just after the red carpet event held that morning. Behind her is the Sunshine Sakae building famous for hosting the popular J-pop group SKE48 and it’s landmark ferris wheel. This image, and others like it, are available for print, product, personal use (eg: non-commercial blogs), and for media licensing at my PhotoShelter portfolio.

Congratulations to Valerie and Frank for taking second place at the WCS. (Note: the original photo is now no longer available, this is Valerie on the red carpet event).

The World Cosplay Summit (WCS) is this weekend in Nagoya. It’s an international celebration of the Japanese comic book industry. The cosplayers make their own costumes based on characters in popular comic books (aka “manga”). Usually, the fans will dress up and sport their best with other cosplayers, and the international competitors do a performance on a stage in front of a huge crowd of about 10,000 spectators, and perhaps a million on TV. A notable sponsor is Brother, the sewing machine company.